Eamonn Murphy

Legal proceedings have been issued against the operator of a bogus website which is posing as the official HSE information service for women with unplanned pregnancies.

MyOptions.ie, which offers free support and gives details on how to access abortion services, was started by the HSE on January 1 when the new law on terminations came into effect. Soon after, anti-abortion campaigners set up a website using a similar name.

Anti-abortion activists who tried to coax a woman into a fake scan appointment also tried to report a separate termination to gardaí last week, The Times can reveal.

Activists working for the Good Counsel Network, which runs a rogue crisis pregnancy agency in Dublin, turned up at Drogheda garda station claiming to have knowledge about an abortion performed at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital. They called for the doctors involved to be investigated and possibly prosecuted.

Ireland's health minister has ordered an investigation after a woman's personal details were reportedly obtained by anti-abortion activists, before the information was used in a deceitful attempt to lure her to a location in north Dublin.

Simon Harris, who requested the inquiry, described the allegations as "extraordinarily concerning".